


domino theory

by MousselineSerieuse



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Betrayal (Foreshadowed), Betrayal (Inevitable), Betrayal (Multiple), Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, F/M, Gen, Imperialism, The esoteric dynamics of the fire teens, everyone sleeps on Ty Lee to their own ruin, set immediately after Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25381441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MousselineSerieuse/pseuds/MousselineSerieuse
Summary: You could have the beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee & Zuko, Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Mai & Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	domino theory

i.

The choice is obvious. It’s _natural._ He swings around to direct a jet of flame at the Avatar, and it’s like everything in the last two months has been a dream. Like he wasn’t thinking, only yesterday, about what it might be like to be _Lee_ forever.

Now, in the silence that descends after the Dai Li leave with Uncle, Prince Zuko follows his sister out of the catacombs.

“You’re a better liar than you used to be.” Her voice echoes against the walls, and he jumps, and he can practically feel her smile. “I actually wasn’t certain that you would make the right decision.”

He looks up, trying to discern the faint rays of sunlight at the top of the staircase. (He keeps thinking about the city above them, about whether anyone up there knows, yet, that they’ve been conquered.) “What else would I have done?”

“Oh, _I_ don’t know. You could have listened to Uncle, when he asked you to betray your country. You two always _were_ so close.”

Something contorts inside him when she talks about Uncle, something desperate and involuntary. “No,” he says. “I listened to you.”

She laughs. “What, are you having second thoughts? We’re _family_. Remember, Zuzu?”

_Dad’s going to kill you._

And it occurs to him that _she_ could kill him, if she wanted to. She could tell everyone that he died bringing the Avatar down, and who would contradict her? Who _could,_ that anyone would believe? There’s more light now, and he can _see_ her—the sharp lines of her armor, eyes the same bright gold as his—this is _Azula_.

 _I would deserve it._ The thought descends on him so suddenly and so inescapably that he stops walking.

Azula turns. They’re not far from the entrance now, and she stands silhouetted against the bright afternoon light. _This is where it would happen._

He can’t read her expression, shrouded like this, and for one wild second he thinks—and then she _sighs._ “Don’t worry so much, will you? A lot has changed since you left.”

She doesn’t say anything else. He stands there for a moment, watching her retreat up the stairs. And then he follows her, out of the catacombs and into the bright, sunlit future.

ii.

In the beginning she worried she would betray herself at this moment, but as she studies him in the dim light of the Earth King’s throne room she feels no uncontrollable impulses. He’s taller, of course, and the line of his jaw is sharper than she remembers it being, and the scar covers half his face. It’s both more and less than she imagined. She’s reminded of something Azula once said about lightning generation: the separation of emotion from will.

“You remember Mai, of course.” Azula’s voice is light, teasing, and he reveals everything in the sharp way he jerks his head up. She wonders why Azula didn’t tell him she was here.

“Hi, Zuko!” Ty Lee calls out. As if they were eight years old again: Zuko and Azula just back from Ember Island, and the whole summer ahead of them.

(Mai knows very well that it’s pointless to question why Azula does anything at all.)

She runs into him again in one of the corridors, and this time he catches her by surprise. There’s something different about him, something beyond the physical, a distance or an awareness. This is what life does to you. She realizes that he’s examining her—her face, her hands, the dark-green hem of her robe—and she wonders, for the first time, how _she_ must have changed since he last saw her.

“I never imagined you in the Earth Kingdom,” he says finally.

“My father was appointed governor of New Ozai Colony," she says, avoiding the question. 

He frowns, turns away, and she _remembers_ that—the set of his shoulders, his complete inability to conceal disappointment. “Congratulations.”

She’s stepping toward him before she’s fully aware of it, and suddenly her hand is cupping the side of his face. What am I doing, she thinks—his skin is so warm beneath her hand—why am I _touching_ him. Her fingertips skim the bottom of his scar, and he just _lets_ her.

He looks down at her—his eyes meet hers, finally. “Why are you here?” he says.

 _Separation_ , she thinks distantly. She can tell that she’s blushing. She keeps her expression controlled, and she looks back at him, unflinching. “You know why.”

iii.

Mai and Azula hate Ba Sing Se, but Ty Lee doesn’t mind it. She likes the flower market in the Middle Ring, and she likes the street performers, and she likes the palace with its hidden courtyards and its cavelike reception rooms. You can do a full tumbling pass down the state banquet table, and it’s not like anyone here is going to stop her.

Azula’s already talking about going home. _Home_ means a victory celebration—Ty Lee’s parents coming up to the capital and acting like the last year didn’t happen. She buys silk scarves for all her sisters just to get it out of the way, and she carries them back to the palace, past the Dai Li agents with their unchanging faces, past the empty throne room. _Ty Lin never conquered the Earth Kingdom,_ she thinks, her feet skipping lightly over the stone floors. _Ty Lum never conquered the Earth Kingdom. Ty Lat never conquered—_

She stops short when she hears the hush of metal slicing through air. _Mai_ , she thinks instinctively, but this sounds different: the _clang_ of the blade against the target, not the soft embedded _thud._ None of the Dai Li are allowed in this part of the palace, and for a minute Ty Lee’s actually _worried,_ creeping closer along the upper gallery—but of course it’s only Zuko. Ty Lee doesn’t remember Zuko with swords, but he has them now: _two_ of them, which she doesn’t see very often, but then—

She notices the knives.

There are five of them, lined up in their holsters, attached to a swath of black fabric which (Ty Lee has learned) can be tied around the wrist for easy access to reserves. And they’re just _sitting_ there, blades glinting in the sunlight next to Zuko’s crumpled shirt.

Ty Lee follows the line of sight upward, and _there’s_ Mai, folded against one of the pillars, just watching _._ She’s so still and so quiet that if it weren’t for the knives on the bench Ty Lee would think she was there to spy on him. As it is—

If Zuko knows she’s here, then Azula almost definitely doesn’t.

It’s not like Ty Lee didn’t _know_ something was happening. Mai’s aura has been pinker than she’s ever seen it in these past few days. But _seeing_ them is different. She almost wants to walk loudly on purpose, just so they know she’s there.

(Nobody ever asks her anything. But if they did, Ty Lee thinks she would have told Azula to leave Zuko where he was.)

She crosses to the other side of the gallery. Mai doesn’t notice.

She isn’t even _looking_.

iv.

Conquest has put her in a generous mood, and so she asks Zuko if he wants to help her draft the letter to Father. He doesn’t appreciate the gesture: just scowls and tells her to write whatever she wants, and storms off to haunt some dreary mud-walled courtyard, with or without Mai’s increasingly present shadow by his side.

 _Paranoid,_ she thinks. Nothing’s changed.

She writes the letter herself, outlining her victories like courses at a state banquet, turtle-duck soup and the death of the Avatar. At the end, she adds her own suggestions. Zuko still demonstrates the same pathetic qualities he’s always had, but he’s unpredictable. The last two months have proven that. And Azula has known since she was _six_ that unstable elements are best kept controlled.

“Your characters are so pretty.”

Ty Lee practically floats across the room. “I used to _hate_ calligraphy, don’t you remember? We had those drills at the end of the week, and I would just cry all morning. Ask Mai.”

Azula glances up, half annoyed. The scarves are spread out on Ty Lee’s bed, bright clashing squares of pink and green and black, and she bites her lip as she examines them, like she’s trying to decide how to allocate them and when.

Azula has never wished for sisters. Ty Lee always makes it seem like such a _chore_.

_Brothers, on the other hand..._

“Speaking of Mai, have you seen her lately?”

“Just at breakfast.” Ty Lee holds a length of orange silk up to the window. “Do you want me to go look for her?”

Azula swirls her brush around the inkstone, thinking. An attachment could be useful to her. At the very least it would _distract Zuzu,_ which is going to be important going forward.

“That won’t be necessary. But if you do see her, tell her I’d like to talk to her before dinner.”

Ty Lee bows, lower than she has to. The end of her braid sweeps the floor. “Of course, Azula!”

Azula looks down at her neat, self-assured characters—they _are_ pretty, not that it matters—and considers this, the question of distractions. Construction projects, year-long colonial assignments, positions of great honor and little authority. Betrothals, maybe. Country houses.

She dips her brush into her ink, and sets to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Summary comes from the actual Domino Theory speech by United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954. Make what you will of this artistic decision.
> 
> Come talk to me about A:tLA [on tumblr](https://mousselines.tumblr.com/)


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